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Shaquille O'Neal's out for the regular season and probably a significant chunk of the playoffs, depending on how his thumb heals and his conditioning. But what does that mean for Cleveland and their title hopes?
All right, toss out the regular season. The Cavs have a six-game lead on the rest of the East, the best player in the NBA, a deep team regardless and they play in the Eastern Conference. Even in a worst-case scenario they fall to number two in the East behind Orlando, which actually might work out better for them.
The regular season doesn't matter, but the postseason does. Let's take a look at the teams they could end up facing and how Shaq's absence could affect things. We'll assume three things. One, Zydrunas Ilgauskas re-signs with Cleveland, since even with him supposedly "mulling it over," odds are he comes back "home." And two, we'll assume Shaq is not available until the Eastern Conference Finals. He could be back as early as the end of the first round, but we'll go ahead and assume a moderate-case scenario, factoring in conditioning. Three, we'll assume the Raptors get the fifth seed because of their offense and get bounced in the first round because of their defense.
Let's start with the first round of the playoffs.